Chesterfield County, VA Landscaping Rules: Water Restrictions (2026)

Under Chesterfield County Code Article VI of Chapter 18, the director of utilities can declare voluntary water conservation measures, and the county administrator can escalate to mandatory or emergency restrictions, during extended drought or when reservoir levels and river flows drop below established criteria. Both the voluntary measure in Sec. 18-152(4) and the mandatory measure in Sec. 18-153(4) impose the identical odd/even landscape watering schedule: odd-numbered addresses may water established landscaping only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, even-numbered addresses (and locations with no street number) only on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and watering is prohibited entirely on Mondays.

Hand-watering with buckets of up to five gallons per day is always allowed regardless of the day. Newly planted landscaping gets a ten-day grace period with unrestricted watering before the address-based schedule kicks in; overseeding an existing lawn does not count as new landscaping under the Sec. 18-158 definitions. m. Tuesday through Sunday under mandatory measures), with greens exempted. If emergency restrictions are declared under Sec. 18-154, all landscape watering is prohibited outright with no address exception. Restrictions take legal effect once the county administrator's declaration is published, per Sec. 18-155, and mandatory-restriction violations are only enforceable after that first publication under Sec. 18-156.